G is for Genitalia (Body Folktales)

This year, my A to Z Challenge theme is Body Folktales. Enjoy!

CW: Adult themes incoming! Obviously.

You didn't really think I was going to do a theme like this without addressing the obvious, did you?

(Note: Some of these tales say 'vagina' instead of 'vulva'. It may be factually incorrect, but I didn't want to mess with the translations.)

Wandering genitalia (Saora people, India)
This story claims that in the old days genitalia could detach themselves and go wandering at night. One evening, the creator Kittung accidentally stepped on a vulva which made a squealing sound. Feeling sorry, he put the small creature into the river, where it turned into a turtle (the head is the clitoris). He then made non-detachable parts for people.

Clitoris legends (India)

This collection from India contains a whole collection of amazing stories about the clitoris. One creation myth claim that lightning was born from Earth Mother's clitoris, therefore it "flashes and sparkles as the clitoris does." Another story says a woman was fishing in a stream one day when a crab pinched her vulva; a deity told her to cut off the claw, and she will have as much pleasure from it as she had pain. A third story tells of a girl who was so busy working that she misplaced her clitoris; she borrowed one from a bird and never gave it back.

My favorite, however, is another tale that claims that body parts used to go wandering on their own. One day, the breasts picked a fight with the vulvas, and chased them all away into the mountains. Dismayed, men set out to bring the vulvas back, but they are skittish creatures and hard to find. By the time they got back, some old women died, and people were left with extra vulvas. They divided them up equally in smaller pieces - creating the clitoris.

The wandering vagina (Mehinaku people, Brazil)

Yet another story that claims that in days of old, genitalia could wander around. A woman named Tukwi had an "especially foolish" vagina that crawled around the floor at night, looking for something to eat. It got into the porridge and started slurping, awakening a man in the house who went to see what it was, and accidentally scorched it with a torch. The vagina fled back to Tukwi, who then warned everyone not to let their vaginas wander around.

Vagina dentata

If there is one folklore trope that a lot of people are (painfully) familiar with, it's this one: vaginas with teeth (F574.1.1). There are entire books written about the folklore and mythology of this trope, so I'm not going to get into it. But I'm going to highlight some favorites. 

One is a Khond legend from India about a woman who used to have shiny, fiery teeth in her vagina until her husband took them out with a cord. After a long life, when their children were grown, she found the teeth again, buried in the garden - and they turned into fireflies. Ever since, they have been allowed to take shelter in people's houses.

The other story is a Mongolian legend about the death of Genghis Khan. It claim that the great khan desired a gorgeous woman named Gürbeljin Ghoa (Lizard Beauty). He put her husband to death and forced her to marry him. On her wedding night, she hid blades in her vagina - and thus murdered Genghis Khan. (Source here.)

An origin story from the Makka people in Paraguay claims that in the beginning, no one could have sex with women because they had piranhas in their vaginas. A wise shaman organized a dance party where he made women dance so much that all the piranhas fell out. Or rather, almost all - the smallest one stayed in and still gnaw, which is why periods exist.

Penis, Vagina and Testicles (Cameroon)

Penis and Testicles are best friends and they go fishing together. On the way back they meet Vagina who asks for some of their fish. Penis is happy to share, but Testicles are stingy. Later on, in the hot season, Vagina happily offers shelter from the sun to Penis, but not Testicles. The latter still try to get as close as possible. (A similar tale is told in Ghana about Penis and Testicles sharing ground nuts with Vagina, and getting shelter from the rain.)

Kwazerema and helpful Ant (Kapsiki people, Cameroon/Nigeria)

A man has two wives, but treats one of them very poorly, making her fetch water from the river every day. The woman meets a Red And who takes pity on her, and gives her medicine to put into her water jar. The husband has a habit of urinating in her jar - but this time, as he does, his penis gets stuck in it. Not only can no one break the jar, it also keeps singing a mocking song. Eventually he begs his wife to undo the curse, and decides to treat her better. She thanks Red Ant for the help.

Kapo-kohe-lele (Hawaii)

In Hawaiian mythology, Kapo of the Flying Vagina is the sister of the volcano goddess Pele. In one legend, the pig-god Kamapua'a pursues Pele and tries to rape her, but Kapo comes to her rescue: she uses her detachable vagina to distract the pig, leading him away from the goddess. (This story is reflected in Hawaiian place names. Other source here.)

The vagina girls (Jicarilla Apache legend)

The hero Killer-of-Enemies goes through many adventures, battling monsters and shaping the world. On his journey he defeats a monster and meets his four daughters in a house full of vaginas. The four girls are themselves vaginas in human form, and they use their teeth to devour people. The hero feeds them medicine, taking the teeth away, and they lay down the ground rules of how vaginas shall work. He picks two from their collection and takes them home to two girls; people experiment with where to put them on the body until they settle on their current placing. The four girls go on to live good lives among the humans.

The three wishes (1001 Nights)

A man earns three wishes - and immediately uses the first one to wish for a larger penis. His penis grows to a gigantic size, at which point he panics and wishes for it to go away. It does, and now he has to use his third wish to get it back.

The four champions (Hausa tale)

Four friends acquire grain together: they break the corn on one's head, thresh it with one's penis, winnow it with one's mighty farts, and carry it home with one's scrotum. The question of the dilemma tale is: who was the most heroic of the four?

(14th century illustration)

I am somewhat worried about the comments section now. Also, my general search history and upcoming Facebook advertisements.

Have a nice Sunday break, everyone!

Period is power (Following folktales around the world 17. - Paraguay)

Today I continue new blog series titled Following folktales around the world! If you would like to know what the series is all about, you can find the introduction post here. You can find all posts under the Following Folktales label, or you can follow the series on Facebook!

It was no easy to find a collection from Paraguay. After getting two books that only talked about stories, I finally narrowed the search down to the oral tradition of one specific tribe. 

Folk literature of the Makka Indians
Johannes Wilbert and Karin Simoneau
UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 1991.

This book is one of a 24-volume series on the oral traditions of South American indigenous peoples. It collects the tales of the Makka (Maká, Macca, etc.), all collected in the 1970s when most of the informants did not speak Spanish yet. The book includes 108 folktales, myths, and legends, many of them in several versions, showcasing how the same narrative can be told differently by different storytellers (I really enjoyed this). It is a very high quality folklore publication: It has appendices, folktale motif numbers, footnotes, information about the tellers, a generous introduction, and everything a researcher could possibly need. The tales have been transcribed and translated word for word, so the text gives a glimpse of what they sounded like in live telling; they are also uncensored, which means there is a whole lot of sex and violence in them. They were quite fascinating.

Highlights

One of my favorite tales was that of a boy whom his father-in-law wanted to kill by sending him to the river infested by a giant serpent. The first couple of times friendly animals (otter, nutria) saved him, but he eventually got devoured, and spent two days fighting his way back out of the belly of the beast. When he emerged, he did not have hair or eyebrows anymore... I also liked the tale of The girl who married a tree, where a lignum vitae tree turned into a loving husband who brought a rich harvest to the people.

Rolled up armadillo

There was a whole chapter of Jaguar tales. Jaguar is not only an animal spirit, but also a shaman - and yet more often than not he was on the receiving end of some painful events. In one story, he killed Armadillo's children, for which Armadillo mother decided to take revenge. She pretended to be sick, and when they called the shaman and he leaned over her, she rolled herself up and clung to his snout through fire and water until the Jaguar dropped dead. While this ending was very satisfying, in most tales the ovenbird eventually brought the Jaguar back to life.
I loved it that the tales were full of colorful imagery. There were multiple stories explaining where the birds got their colors, and there was even a hero whose skin was made of yellow butterflies. There were also several mythical peoples, such as the fukus lei, a tribe of stick people who could easily be mistaken for firewood (Groot?...), and a group of blind men who lived on honey. The strangest creature was probably Pointed-Leg, a man who carved his tibia into a point and used it to stab unsuspecting travelers.

Say what?

Also strange, and definitely graphic, was the legend that claimed that at the beginning of time men could not have sex with women, because they had piranhas living in their vaginas. The wise shaman Hawk made the women dance until the piranhas fell out, the large ones first and then the smaller ones, until only one tiny piranha remained in each woman, gnawing at them - which is why we have periods (I can attest to the accuracy of this description). Menstruation, by the way, featured quite often into the stories; the above mentioned tribe of blind men was cured by a woman on her period, and there was also a popular legend about a woman who turned into a cannibal ogre because her husband forced her to cook food while she was on her period.

Connections

I did not expect to find a far cousin of Celtic kelpies and each uisge-s in Paraguay - and yet there was one, a water horse that dragged people into rivers and drowned them.

Once again, there was an abundance of trickster tales. The Makka's trickster is Fox, and also a person called Tip'a; the latter was not very likable, being a rapist and a murderer, and usually died at the end of the stories. Jaguar came to a similar end in a legend that reminded me of Daedalus and Icarus; he learned to fly from Vulture, but the sun melted the wax he stuck his feathers on, and Jaguar plummeted to his death.
I also encountered a legend about a star-wife; they seem to be common in American indigenous folklore, I am sure I will meet them again later on. There was also a legend about a sky-high tree that people used to climb to fish in the sky, until it was burned down. It reminded me of myths from Oceania, and so did the story of the woman who had an eel for a lover.
And finally, barely a country goes by without at least one folktale of two animals having a race, Tortoise and the Hare style. This time, it was Rhea and Tick (which would be a great title for an indie band), and the latter won.

Where to next? 
Argentina!